Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!: More Magical Tales from the Author of 'God, No!'

Let's be honest - nobody has more fun than atheists. Don’t believe it? Well, consider this: For nonbelievers, every day you’re alive is a day to celebrate! And no one celebrates life to the fullest like Penn Jillette - the larger, louder half of legendary magic duo Penn & Teller - whose spectacularly witty and sharply observant essays in Every Day Is an Atheist Holiday! will entertain zealots and skeptics alike.

What did you like best about Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!? What did you like least?

I enjoy The interesting way Penn Jillette views the world. His experiences and stories really make listening to him fun and you can see how his upbringing gave him a unique perspective on life. What I like least about this book is that being a fan, I have heard 90% of this already.

What other book might you compare Every Day is an Atheist Holiday! to and why?

The only other book that I can compare to this is God, No! Penn can only be compared to Penn. Wether or not that's a compliment or insult depends on how you feel about the man.

Have you listened to any of Penn Jillette’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have listened to both of his audiobooks and his audio essay. Once again, Penn is Penn, which is great in my book.

Did Every Day is an Atheist Holiday! inspire you to do anything?

Not to sound cheesy, but This book inspired me to laugh more, love more and try to appreciate being alive more. I am a generally negative person and these books are inspiring me to be more positive.

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris' recent best-seller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos.

What made the experience of listening to God Is Not Great the most enjoyable?

Hearing the unparalleled level of logic applied to millennia of religious beliefs.

What did you like best about this story?

Christopher Hitchens knows more about most religions than their supposed leaders do. Hearing him call B.S. on so many people and stories is quite enjoyable.

What didn’t you like about Christopher Hitchens’s performance?

Not to speak ill of the dead, but I find his method of delivery to have been almost haphazard. It sounded as if narrating his own book was a bother, that he was doing it in between sips and drags. He mumbled many parts, I had to rewind some sections two or three times because his voice made me zone out. This may make a better read then listen.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I was extremely impressed with the level of research. I was extremely annoyed at the world around me. I was extremely saddened by the state of global affairs.

Any additional comments?

I am new to reading atheist philosophy. I tend not to enjoy reading about philosophies that I already share, it doesn't help you grow. I was pleased to know that the man who many look up to as one of the greatest of our generation came to many of the same conclusions that I came to on my own. I am also pleased to have been shown other examples that I can bank in the back of my head for those wonderful debates I seem to get dragged into on a regular basis.

This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It

Warning: You may have a huge, invisible spider living in your skull. This is not a metaphor. You will dismiss this as ridiculous fearmongering. Dismissing things as ridiculous fearmongering is, in fact, the first symptom of parasitic spider infection - the creature secretes a chemical into the brain to stimulate skepticism, in order to prevent you from seeking a cure. That’s just as well, since the “cure” involves learning what a chain saw tastes like. You can’t feel the spider, because it controls your nerve endings.

Only You Can Save Mankind

As the mighty alien fleet from the very latest computer game thunders across the computer screen, Johnny prepares to blow them into the usual million pieces. And they send him a message: We surrender. They're not supposed to do that! They're supposed to die. And computer joysticks don't have 'Don't Fire' buttons. But it's only a game... isn't it?

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....

I would recommend the printed or digital book, but not the audiobook. I found the narration to be agonizing at times. I don't blame the actors, but whoever directed them.

Allison Hiroto's narration was robotic when performing Aomame. NO normal person enunciates every syllable the way she did. And the Dowager...I dreaded every time her character entered the story. E-ver-y wo-rd e-nun-ci-at-Ed and spoken ridiculously slow. My grandmother is an 80 year old immigrant whose second language is English and she sure doesn't speak like that.

Tengo's narrator was pretty good. All of the characters narrated by this actor came off as believable, relatable, and essentially very human (besides the Fuka-Eri moments). The only time this suffered was when the writing got silly. there were whole passages of Fuka-Eri would as something, and Temfo would just repeat it.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

This book had many book within a book moments. I like when stories are about telling stories. Very Gaiman.

Would you be willing to try another one of the narrators’s performances?

Only one, if I find out who voiced Tengo. I would rather not hear the other two voices for the rest of my life.

Do you think 1Q84 needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No, this is already a compiled trilogy.

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